Who cares about Otiluke, Mordenkainen, Rary and whatever geezer names they trot out.

[JRRNeiklot]

I started with Holmes and I had wanted the names removed with 3e, I wanted the names removed. While I appreciate the history, I do not play in Greyhawk. Save the greyhawk wizard names, Greyhawk deities, etc. for a Greyhawk supplement or stick the Greyhawk references into an appendix using Greyhawk as a sample setting.

Mordenkainen is famous for plane hopping. His spells could easily spill over into multiple campaign settings.

 

[the Jester]

Not every spell needs a name- even in the real world, sometimes, the innovator's name just gets lost with time, or the discovery was made virtually simultaneously by several researchers.

We don't talk about Og's Fire, do we? Or the inventor of the toothbrush, right?

Case in point: horrid wilting, which first appeared in 2e as Abu-Dalzim's horrid wilting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I liked it with his name on it...

He came up with one nasty innovation and got his name in it. Perfect.

 

[MarkB]

To be fair, Abu-Dalzim's horrid wilting sounds more like an embarrassing medical complaint than a spell. I suspect he got his name taken off it after the jokes started wearing thin.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not every spell needs a name- even in the real world, sometimes, the innovator's name just gets lost with time, or the discovery was made virtually simultaneously by several researchers.

We don't talk about Og's Fire, do we? Or the inventor of the toothbrush, right?

This reminds me...

The inventor of the water toilet and the inventor of toilet paper can probably look back on their life, and say: "We really did improve this world. And no is going to blow up someone else with it. Right, Noble, Oppenheimer et al?"

 

[Blackwarder]

I once played a wizard (back when I was about 11) who invented John's Acid Bolt, it was a variation of Melf's Acid Arrow that basically created a small pool of acid where the bolt hit, he invented it by miscasting Melf's Acid Arrow and having the arrow explode before impact and showering the rest of the group with acid... Sigh... Those were the good ol'days.

Warder

 

[Lord Mhoram]

There is also a very subtle implication about having names in spells: so-and-so invented a spell, and your character can, too!

Yeah. This one is huge. I had a 1st ed character create a spell. Of course it was named after the character in the classic of which we are speaking of in this thread.

That GM added the spell to his campaign stuff. It was called that in campaign (and the cachet of creating that spell was a useful perk for the character). Then the GM used it in later games, so it became part of his history. Of course I did the same - no matter what world it was in, I had that spell with that character's name attached.

 

[Greg K]

Mordenkainen is famous for plane hopping. His spells could easily spill over into multiple campaign settings.

It depends on the setting, the cosmology of the DM's world, and the DM. I and every DM I have gamed used closed worlds. You won't find characters hopping from one campaign world to another campaign world via the planes, because those other campaign settings do not exist from the perspective of our campaigns.

Even when we ran a published setting like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, there was no cross-over (regardless of the what is written in articles like the "Wizards Three" or the authors/designers). Players could not bring in characters from other campaigns in which they had played. You made up a brand new character

 

[El Mahdi]

We don't talk about Og's Fire, do we? Or the inventor of the toothbrush, right?

Anything that doesn't have a name on it can just be assumed to have been developed by me or my forebears.

Can you help me with filing the patent/copyright applications...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Proof may be a problem...and sadly, I'm not a member of the Patent Bar.